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Letters
PRESSURE POINTS
As the publisher of an independent journal of the arts in a small city I am acutely aware of the pressure advertisers apply to an unfettered press ("The Squeeze," CJR, September/October). However, I think the point that Procter & Gamble "doesn't want its ads near anything about . . . the occult, cults, or the disparagement of religion," deserved a chance for rebuttal.
For years, Procter & Gamble battled an "urban myth" that its stars-and-moon trademark was an evil or satanic symbol. The company was boycotted, and, in addition to that loss of revenue, it no doubt spent millions on damage control.
I presume this omission was an oversight, and not a reaction to P & G's reputation for being "very touchy." And in fairness let me add that this letter was easy to write knowing the likelihood of either corporation's advertising in a publication with a circulation of 2,000.
Tim Trewhella
Publisher
The Highland Flyer
Peekskill, New York
SURE-FOOTED STORY
Your Dart to me for a Nation article that "appears to have tripped - without so much as a cursory bow - on the heels of" an earlier story in U.S. News & World Report on the very same subject of immigrant meatpackers in Iowa (CJR, September/October) is totally unwarranted.
When I set out to do my reporting in Storm Lake, Iowa, last year I had no inkling of the U.S. News piece. But after running a routine Nexis search, I did come across it. It was a good and comprehensive story. I took it seriously enough to show it to my editor and ask should we still go ahead. Together we decided there were important aspects of the story that were still missing and that The Nation could still make an important contribution to public knowledge of this issue.
My reporting was significantly different than that of U.S. News. I covered the situation in other communities and industries not touched on by U.S. News and I focused much more on the hypocrisies of U.S. immigration law. Yes, both of our pieces devoted much space to one small town, namely, Storm Lake, Iowa. And I did interview some of the same sources used in the U.S. News story. But this is inevitable given that Storm Lake has only one police chief, and one mayor, for example. But even my reporting on official attitudes in Storm Lake revealed a dramatic shift from those gathered by U.S. News six months previous. The story had changed. And I reported those changes.
Marc Cooper
Contributing editor
The Nation
New York, New York
RELIABLE SOURCE
Well, jeepers, creepers (or should it be jeep-ers creepers?), what's got into Chrysler (Jeep registered trademark ad, back cover, CJR, September/October)?
Will their "vicious, bloodthirsty guard dogs" confiscate my American Heritage Dictionary, which lists "jeep" (lower case) as "a small, durable motor vehicle with four-wheel drive and quarter-ton capacity, used as an all-purpose vehicle by the armed forces. (Originally G.P., "general purpose.")
Will CJR take up the challenge and mount a campaign to prevent further massive corporate expropriation of our language? Take heed, wretched scriveners. You have only your words to lose!
Samuel Pennington
Editor
Maine Antique Digest
Waldoboro, Maine
MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC
Exploring the reasons editors and publishers are changing their opinion pages ("Trying to Make Editorials Sing," CJR, September/October) helps us understand more about the changes themselves. But for the author, Steve Simurda, to simply state that the reasons for change are hard to pinpoint and then move on to explain the changes is insufficient.
The Spokesman-Review overhauled its content plan because we felt that the opinion pages could be a place to connect the newspaper more closely to the community [by regularly having nonstaff contributors]. To re-engage the public in community debate and civic life. Increasing readership will always be a concern but we felt if we made the opinion pages accessible and allowed the public to speak along with us, that readers would go there. And we felt that to be successful in that endeavor we would have to deflate the egos, allow for other opinions, offer surprise, and realize that our own arrogance was partly responsible for the decline in participation in public debate, public life, and readership. We're still in the middle of this experiment. Our empirical evidence tells us we're having some successes. I applaud the efforts of Ronald Clark of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Diane Curtis of the San Francisco Chronicle, and some of the others mentioned in the article who are actively challenging and changing their ges. It's much easier to sit still and do nothing.
Scott Sines
Managing editor, Opinion
The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington
A COP-OUT?
Your September/October story, "Hardball in New York," is a home run. Your reporter has depicted accurately the anti-press atmosphere in Mayor Rudy Giuliani's city.
Eve Burton, the general counsel to the Daily News, deserves praise for winning victories in the courts, forcing certain city records to be turned over to the press under freedom of information laws. Sadly, the same thing cannot be said for George Freeman, the assistant general counsel at The New York Times. When Times free-lance reporter Julia Campbell was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct as she was covering the funeral of rapper Biggie Smalls, Freeman made a deal with the police. They dropped the charges against Campbell and he apologized for the "intemperate language" used by Campbell. (Her offense? When they snapped the cuffs on her, the young woman said: "What the . . . is going on?")
The Times allowed the police department to issue a press release announcing that the charges were dropped and the Times had apologized. For what? For a reporter doing her job?
Freeman tells CJR: "We have to look beyond the individual incident to the continuum of dealing with the police department. To be antagonistic would not serve us in the long run."
Is this The New York Times of the Pentagon Papers? of Times v. Sullivan? Is this the same newspaper that exposed the Tweed Ring?
The police manufactured a series of charges against Campbell, including inciting to riot and pushing an officer. Those charges (made in a written report) weren't mentioned by Freeman or the police when the department issued its press release.
That The New York Times would be concerned about a "continuum" in relationships with the police is beyond belief. The police are there to serve the public and the job of reporter and editor is to report on the police and scrutinize their behavior, not make deals with them.
Gabe Pressman
President
New York Press Club
New York, New York
CIVIC LESSON
Let me point out the errors in the article on civic journalism research ("An Experiment That Didn't Work," CJR, July/August).
* The Pew Center did not suppress research about civic journalism conducted by the Bergen Record. The Bergen research was first brought before the profession at a Pew Center conference in December of 1996, then highlighted in the January issue of the Pew Center's quarterly Civic Catalyst. At the very time CJR was preparing its article, the Pew Center was aggressively promoting two public forums, at which the research was distributed and discussed, one at the National Press Club in Washington, the second at the annual convention of journalism professors in Chicago.
* CJR incorrectly reported a two-page summary of the research findings was authored by the Pew Center, which was accused of "putting its own spin on negative evidence." The summary was written not by the Pew Center but by the report's authors.
* CJR incorrectly reported that the Pew Center asserted that the findings were limited to one project and that, "it would be presumptuous to make broad judgments about the overall potential of public journalism." That comment was written by the principal researcher.
* CJR incorrectly reported that "some 100 dailies, weeklies, and radio and television stations have received $1.7 million in grants since 1993." Both the statement and the figures are wrong. The Pew Center does not make grants; it does help with funding for risky experiments in civic journalism by entering into subcontracts with media partnerships, not all of which receive funding. The proposals are made by the partners not the Pew Center and approved by our advisory board. The correct figures are forty-nine initiatives in thirty-seven cities and three states; the correct amount is $2.3 million over four years.
It is regrettable that CJR, the forum in which important issues of journalism should be debated - and the Bergen research spotlighted such an issue by showing how difficult it is for journalists to break through a $17 million TV [election campaign] ad campaign - rather than nourishing the debate, ignored the substance of the research and instead focused on a false and malicious report.
Edward M. Fouhy
Executive director
Pew Center for Civic Journalism
Washington, D.C.
The editors reply: CJR did not say the Pew Center suppressed all research on the civic journalism experiment at the Record. In fact, the article noted that the results had been mailed to some 4,000 people. But that was after the abrupt cancellation of a presentation of the findings at a Norfolk meeting of the prestigious American Association for Public Opinion Research, and that episode was the focus of the article. As it reported, some of those attending the conference - specifically, in some cases, to hear the report about the Record - concluded that the Center was suppressing unfavorable news. The article also noted that some findings had been reported at a Pew conference in December, and it quoted from the January issue of Civic Catalyst that Fouhy cites.
The two-page summary of the research findings, described by CJR as "by Pew," was part of the 40-plus pages of the 4,000-person mailing Pew sent out. The phrase "putting its own spin on negative evidence" applied not to the summary but to the Norfolk episode.
The semantic question of "grants" versus "media partnerships" seems a distinction without a difference. Regardless of who proposes what, the Center gives people money to help with civic journalism projects.
The figure "some 100" for news outlets that have received Pew Center money can be verified at the Center's own Web site. CJR was not discussing "initiatives" or cities or states.
